Detectives investigating the deaths of 39 migrants whose bodies were found in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Essex are searching for a second driver.

Police in Belgium have obtained CCTV footage of the haulier who transported the men and women to the Zebrugge ferry terminal.

As more details of the disaster emerge, prosecutors in France said migrants were sometimes lured into such lorries not realising how cold it would become inside.

Sources have claimed the migrants were naked or had minimal clothing when they were found in the container on Wednesday in Purfleet, Essex.

According to the Mirror, there were bloody handprints along the inside of the lorry door ‘where they must have been banging for help.’

The revelations come as UK detectives continue to question four people about the deaths, which sparked the biggest murder investigation since the 2005 London suicide bombings.

Last night officers in Essex detained a 48-year-old man from Northern Ireland at Stansted Airport on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and manslaughter.

Officers have also arrested haulage boss Thomas Maher and his wife Joanna, both 38, from Warrington, Cheshire, on suspicion of 39 counts of manslaughter and people trafficking.

Mrs Maher is named in documents as the last known owner of the Scania cab, which was registered in Bulgaria and driven by Mo Robinson.

The trucker was the first to be arrested on suspicion of murder after he made the grim discovery of the bodies of 31 men and eight women.

The Mahers said they sold the cab a year ago to a firm in County Monaghan, Ireland, not far from where Mr Robinson lives with his pregnant girlfriend.

Detectives have raided four properties as they step up the investigation into the alleged people-smuggling network behind the deaths.

Police initially said the victims were from China but at least six are now believed to be Vietnamese.

Formal identification has yet to take place but some families have come forward to say they paid £30,000 to people smugglers for the fateful journey of their loved ones.

Relatives of 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My told the broadcaster they have not been able to contact her since she sent a text on Tuesday night saying she was suffocating.

She wrote: ‘I am really, really sorry, Mum and Dad, my trip to a foreign land has failed.

‘I am dying, I can’t breathe. I love you very much Mum and Dad. I am sorry, Mother.’

Relatives of Nguyen Dinh Luong, 20, have also said they fear he is among the victims.

Gangs are thought to have trafficked thousands of Vietnamese nationals in the past decade with many forced to work in nail bars or cannabis farms to pay off the huge cost of making the trip to the West.

If the fridge on the hermetically sealed trailer was not running there would be no air coming in, suffocating people inside, according to Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association.

It is not yet known when the victims entered the trailer, where temperatures can be as low as minus 25C if the fridge is activated, or the exact route it travelled.

One route is through Russia, across eastern Europe with an extended stay in France.

Belgian officials said the trailer arrived at Zeebrugge at 2.49pm on Tuesday and left the port the same day en route to Purfleet.

The trailer arrived at Purfleet at around 12.30am on Wednesday, and was picked up by the cab, known as the tractor, which arrived from Northern Ireland via Holyhead in North Wales on Sunday.

The lorry left the port at Purfleet shortly after 1.05am before police were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park on Eastern Avenue in Grays at 1.40am.

The ferry port in Zebrugge is managed by Luxembourg-based company C.RO, which is understood to have handed CCTV footage to the police.

Officials think the migrants entered the refrigerated unit before they got to Zebrugge and attention on mainland Europe is now on the driver who delivered it to the port.

A source told Dutch-language newspaper Het Nieusblad: ‘We hope to catch him soon. His truck was filmed ten times at the port site.’

A Belgian police officer, who asked not to be named, said it would be ‘virtually impossible’ for migrants to get into the lorries at Zebrugge because of security.

However, if they were placed in lorries further afield and the refrigerated unit switched on, they would avoid being detected by heat-sensing cameras or sniffer dogs at the port.

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